[Arashi] [Cyberpunk!AU] Open Your Eyes (11)
[Title] Open Your Eyes (11)
[Author] honooko
[Rating] R
[Notes] Well, I guess this is an improvement? Also, I love Aiba. ♥
Despite Jun's threat, Sho did not end up sleeping like a dog in the corner of the living room. Instead, when Sho announced he was too tired to be planning a rebellion, Nino smiled at him and took his hand. He led Sho down the hall to his room, clearly opening his bed to Sho for the night.
As he returned to the living room to say goodnight to the others, Nino tried not to look at Ohno's face, but the quietly pained look in Ohno's eyes felt like it was burning into the back of Nino's head. Ohno dropped his gaze; Nino hated the way that hurt remained in his vision, like an afterimage painted by guilt.
After Nino returned to his bedroom, Aiba put a hand on Ohno's knee and smiled at him gently.
"If you want," he said with a grin, "you can sleep with me. We could probably even talk Jun into it! And Nino would be really jealous; he hates being left out of things."
"It's fine," Ohno said, shaking his head. "It's my fault anyhow."
"I doubt it," Aiba said with a shrug. "The older he gets, the less he thinks before he acts."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing," Ohno replied.
"It is for him," Aiba explained. "Nino regrets."
Ohno didn't answer; he couldn't figure out how he was supposed to change that fact.
~
"You don't like him much, do you?" Sho asked. Nino had herded him into the bed quite efficiently, and Sho found himself only moderately surprised when Nino curled up tight against Sho's side, his head pillowed on Sho's shoulder.
"Who?" Nino said, nuzzling his nose just under Sho's jaw. It seemed like an attempt to distract him, and Sho frowned.
"Ohno," he said. "You don't like him."
"…I don't want to talk about him," Nino said after a moment, nipping at Sho's earlobe. His small hand was brushing at Sho's hip in a rather clear attempt to shift Sho's focus. Sho caught Nino's wrist and pulled it away.
"What is it that you know about him that no one else does?" Sho insisted. "There has to be something; he seems perfectly fine to me."
"You weren't there," Nino snapped, his discomfort clear.
"No, I wasn't," Sho agreed. "So tell me what you know."
"I don't want to," Nino repeated, and Sho felt his patience stretch thin.
"Stop acting like a child," he said firmly. "You're too old for that."
Nino's gaze snapped up, his eyes sharp. His jaw set in a tight line and something flashed across his face almost before Sho could catch it. It was as though whatever mask Nino had been wearing had slipped for less than a heartbeat; the picture behind it momentarily struck Sho as almost desperate. Somehow, Sho had struck a weak spot without meaning to.
Slipping out of the bed without a word, Nino left the room. Sho found himself in a strange bed staring up at the ceiling.
Nino padded barefoot down the hall, restless and unsettled. Rationally, he recognized that Sho hadn't really intended to hit him quite so deeply, but it was hard to remember that when some tiny part of him hated knowing that Sho had never lost the way Nino had.
The Ment made things difficult for everyone save the rare few high enough in its ranks to warrant special liberties. It wasn't an opinion, it was fact. They promised security at the sake of freedom and individuality, and a large percentage of the population had never signed up for that. They'd never been given a choice. Nino's life had been shaped in the spaces between Ment influence, in the dark shadows of a strictly-regulated world. Nothing about his childhood had been in any way easy. And while he was in a sense free because of that, it was still painful to find himself held up against a standard he'd never been given a chance to meet.
Sho had called him a child, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that Nino had never been a child in the first place. He, Aiba and Jun had all been forced into making adult choices with children's' minds. Of course he didn't behave like Sho was expecting him too; Sho had a depth to him that could only occur when given the time to grow at his own pace. It wasn't to say Sho hadn't experienced strife himself; the difference was that his father had been there to help him shoulder the burden.
Nino looked at Jun and saw a man who had tried to believe in what the Ment had claimed to be. Jun had studied because he thought that one day, he'd be able to change something. He'd followed the rules because he believed that while the Ment was oppressive, they were at least fair. This faith had been ripped away from him and broken at the loss of his teacher, and a very young boy had come to the crushing realization that not only was he in grave danger just by being there, but that there was no one who could protect him. Jun had taken that grave understanding and walked away from his life because it was the only way he could think to save himself.
Aiba had tried to work within the confines of the Ment, but quickly learned that it didn't matter how skilled he was; personal limits and morals would not be tolerated. Further, whatever motivations the Ment originally had were now lost. All that remained was a fierce and unyielding force turned towards its own people. Aiba had been presented with a choice: to be on the side firing, or to be on the side being fired at. He had realized that anything he produced would be taken and warped to a purpose he didn't believe in, and that the only way to delay the inevitable was to remove himself, the tool, from their hands.
Even if it meant the loss of his own life.
When Nino met Jun and Aiba, he'd felt an immediate kinship with them. Not just because they were all alone, but because they had all been forced in some way or another to grow up in a very short period of time. The usual slow progression into adulthood had been pushed into a very rushed, haphazard growth. Jun and Aiba had found ways to fill the gaps in their maturity, but Nino was trapped in a place of a child's logic being applied to an adult world.
Nino clung to his grudge against Ohno out of a childish inability to react with his mind, rather than his heart. He knew that Sho was right; Ohno was not the villain Nino continued to treat him as. And yet the remaining sting of betrayal, however small, drove him to dismiss rationality.
He couldn't decide what was worse; that he knew all this, or that he couldn't figure out how to change.
Nino's feet carried him to the living room without him noticing until he was standing next to the couch Ohno was sleeping on. In the darkness, Nino could barely make out the line of Ohno's jaw, or the rise and fall of his chest. He stood there, looking down on the object of his continued angst, and felt a complicated swirl of emotions rushing through him.
"Nino?" Ohno said softly, and Nino jumped. He hadn't realized Ohno was actually awake.
"Sorry," he said immediately. He took a step backwards, but Ohno was already sitting up and making space on the couch for Nino to sit. Wordlessly, Nino joined him, pulling his knees up to his chest.
"For a little while there," Ohno said, "I thought you might have forgiven me."
"It's not that easy," Nino said, but he couldn't decide what he meant by it. Ohno seemed to sense Nino's confusion, and he spoke gently, as though his voice alone could fill the space between them.
"I don't blame you. Whether I meant to or not, I hurt you. I'm very sorry for that. But I still don't really understand what it is about me that you don't like," he said. "I can't figure out if you're scared of me, or if you hate me, or if you just wish you'd never met me in the first place."
"Do I seem like a kid to you?" Nino asked, not accusing so much as inquiring.
"In some ways," Ohno said. "Not in others."
"I don't hate you, and I'm not scared of you," Nino said.
"I'm glad," Ohno replied.
"I hate being wrong," Nino continued. "Being wrong can get you killed. It's killed a lot of people I knew. Being wrong about trusting you… is something I can't stand."
Quietly, he added, "But if I forgive you, then I was wrong to stop trusting you. Either way, I've screwed up."
"Being wrong isn't what's dangerous," Ohno said. "Being wrong and not learning from it is."
Nino blinked at him, surprised. "That's one of the smarter things I've heard you say."
"Well, my mom said it, not me," Ohno said sheepishly.
Nino laughed, feeling something in him twist. He wasn't sure he could put the feeling into words; it was part relief, part resignation, part regret. Now that some part of him had given him permission to forgive Ohno, he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable at how much time he'd wasted.
Time with the people around him, more than anything else, was precious to Nino.
"I bet Sho is hogging my pillows," Nino said with a sigh, leaning sideways until his head came to rest on Ohno's shoulder.
"…Nino?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you-what happened that night. Would you take it back?" Ohno asked quietly.
Nino turned the question over in his mind. That night, and the feelings he'd acted on, had seemed at the time almost unbearably powerful. Even the tiniest gesture was magnified in such a way that Nino had felt like every word between them and every touch confirmed a sensation of connection. Something about Ohno was reflected in Nino, and he'd been drawn to that.
"No," he said finally. "I wouldn't."
Ohno turned and hugged him, suddenly and almost desperate. Nino was struck by the thought that somehow, that had been the thing Ohno most wanted to hear.
He was glad.
~
Aiba had called them all into the kitchen the next morning, radiating a wiggling sort of excitement like a proud puppy who'd caught a rat. He positioned them all around the counter how he wanted them, each facing something covered with a dishcloth.
"That better be a clean one," Jun warned Aiba with a glance at the fabric. Aiba laughed nervously, but didn't answer, confirming Jun's fears that something unclean was touching his counters.
"After a morning of slaving away," Aiba said dramatically, and Nino snorted, "I have completed it."
"Completed… what?" Sho asked warily, voicing the question on all their minds.
"That harddrive!" Aiba said as thought this were obvious.
"…Already?" Nino asked, sounding impressed.
"I am just that good," Aiba said, puffing up.
"I'm sure you are," Jun said flatly.
"Anyway, time for the big reveal! Are you ready?" Aiba said, bravely ignoring Jun's lack of faith. "Three, two, one!"
He pulled off the dishcloth to reveal… well. Nino assumed it was a harddrive. Maybe.
"…Aiba," Jun said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"This is the on button here," Aiba said, pinching a nub at the top of one mound. "And this is the data transfer button!"
"Aiba," Nino said, sounding pained.
"As you can see, they're pretty large, but this round shape means they won't overheat as quickly, and plus it's just nice to look at, right?" Aiba said, cupping each round half.
"Aiba," Jun interrupted. "I thought you said you were making it into an egg shape?"
"Aren't these nicer?" Aiba chirped brightly.
"They look like boobs," Ohno pointed out unnecessarily.
"They are boobs," Nino growled. "You made my harddrive into a D-cup!"
"Please," Aiba sniffed. "They are double D's, at the very least."
"I know we had this talk already," Jun said, crossing his arms. "After the penis flashlight, and then again after the bikini-shaped tea cozy."
"But this is different!" Aiba insisted, fingering the nipple-buttons again. "These have form and function!"
"You expect me to hack into the Ment," Nino drawled, "with a pair of huge boobs?!"
"Great, isn't it?" Aiba beamed. "They'll never see it coming!"
"…penis flashlight!?" Sho squeaked after a beat of stunned silence.
"Look at it this way, Nino," Aiba said. "You may be short, but at least you've got a big rack!"
"I hate you," Nino said wearily.
Chapter 12.
[Author] honooko
[Rating] R
[Notes] Well, I guess this is an improvement? Also, I love Aiba. ♥
Despite Jun's threat, Sho did not end up sleeping like a dog in the corner of the living room. Instead, when Sho announced he was too tired to be planning a rebellion, Nino smiled at him and took his hand. He led Sho down the hall to his room, clearly opening his bed to Sho for the night.
As he returned to the living room to say goodnight to the others, Nino tried not to look at Ohno's face, but the quietly pained look in Ohno's eyes felt like it was burning into the back of Nino's head. Ohno dropped his gaze; Nino hated the way that hurt remained in his vision, like an afterimage painted by guilt.
After Nino returned to his bedroom, Aiba put a hand on Ohno's knee and smiled at him gently.
"If you want," he said with a grin, "you can sleep with me. We could probably even talk Jun into it! And Nino would be really jealous; he hates being left out of things."
"It's fine," Ohno said, shaking his head. "It's my fault anyhow."
"I doubt it," Aiba said with a shrug. "The older he gets, the less he thinks before he acts."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing," Ohno replied.
"It is for him," Aiba explained. "Nino regrets."
Ohno didn't answer; he couldn't figure out how he was supposed to change that fact.
~
"You don't like him much, do you?" Sho asked. Nino had herded him into the bed quite efficiently, and Sho found himself only moderately surprised when Nino curled up tight against Sho's side, his head pillowed on Sho's shoulder.
"Who?" Nino said, nuzzling his nose just under Sho's jaw. It seemed like an attempt to distract him, and Sho frowned.
"Ohno," he said. "You don't like him."
"…I don't want to talk about him," Nino said after a moment, nipping at Sho's earlobe. His small hand was brushing at Sho's hip in a rather clear attempt to shift Sho's focus. Sho caught Nino's wrist and pulled it away.
"What is it that you know about him that no one else does?" Sho insisted. "There has to be something; he seems perfectly fine to me."
"You weren't there," Nino snapped, his discomfort clear.
"No, I wasn't," Sho agreed. "So tell me what you know."
"I don't want to," Nino repeated, and Sho felt his patience stretch thin.
"Stop acting like a child," he said firmly. "You're too old for that."
Nino's gaze snapped up, his eyes sharp. His jaw set in a tight line and something flashed across his face almost before Sho could catch it. It was as though whatever mask Nino had been wearing had slipped for less than a heartbeat; the picture behind it momentarily struck Sho as almost desperate. Somehow, Sho had struck a weak spot without meaning to.
Slipping out of the bed without a word, Nino left the room. Sho found himself in a strange bed staring up at the ceiling.
Nino padded barefoot down the hall, restless and unsettled. Rationally, he recognized that Sho hadn't really intended to hit him quite so deeply, but it was hard to remember that when some tiny part of him hated knowing that Sho had never lost the way Nino had.
The Ment made things difficult for everyone save the rare few high enough in its ranks to warrant special liberties. It wasn't an opinion, it was fact. They promised security at the sake of freedom and individuality, and a large percentage of the population had never signed up for that. They'd never been given a choice. Nino's life had been shaped in the spaces between Ment influence, in the dark shadows of a strictly-regulated world. Nothing about his childhood had been in any way easy. And while he was in a sense free because of that, it was still painful to find himself held up against a standard he'd never been given a chance to meet.
Sho had called him a child, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that Nino had never been a child in the first place. He, Aiba and Jun had all been forced into making adult choices with children's' minds. Of course he didn't behave like Sho was expecting him too; Sho had a depth to him that could only occur when given the time to grow at his own pace. It wasn't to say Sho hadn't experienced strife himself; the difference was that his father had been there to help him shoulder the burden.
Nino looked at Jun and saw a man who had tried to believe in what the Ment had claimed to be. Jun had studied because he thought that one day, he'd be able to change something. He'd followed the rules because he believed that while the Ment was oppressive, they were at least fair. This faith had been ripped away from him and broken at the loss of his teacher, and a very young boy had come to the crushing realization that not only was he in grave danger just by being there, but that there was no one who could protect him. Jun had taken that grave understanding and walked away from his life because it was the only way he could think to save himself.
Aiba had tried to work within the confines of the Ment, but quickly learned that it didn't matter how skilled he was; personal limits and morals would not be tolerated. Further, whatever motivations the Ment originally had were now lost. All that remained was a fierce and unyielding force turned towards its own people. Aiba had been presented with a choice: to be on the side firing, or to be on the side being fired at. He had realized that anything he produced would be taken and warped to a purpose he didn't believe in, and that the only way to delay the inevitable was to remove himself, the tool, from their hands.
Even if it meant the loss of his own life.
When Nino met Jun and Aiba, he'd felt an immediate kinship with them. Not just because they were all alone, but because they had all been forced in some way or another to grow up in a very short period of time. The usual slow progression into adulthood had been pushed into a very rushed, haphazard growth. Jun and Aiba had found ways to fill the gaps in their maturity, but Nino was trapped in a place of a child's logic being applied to an adult world.
Nino clung to his grudge against Ohno out of a childish inability to react with his mind, rather than his heart. He knew that Sho was right; Ohno was not the villain Nino continued to treat him as. And yet the remaining sting of betrayal, however small, drove him to dismiss rationality.
He couldn't decide what was worse; that he knew all this, or that he couldn't figure out how to change.
Nino's feet carried him to the living room without him noticing until he was standing next to the couch Ohno was sleeping on. In the darkness, Nino could barely make out the line of Ohno's jaw, or the rise and fall of his chest. He stood there, looking down on the object of his continued angst, and felt a complicated swirl of emotions rushing through him.
"Nino?" Ohno said softly, and Nino jumped. He hadn't realized Ohno was actually awake.
"Sorry," he said immediately. He took a step backwards, but Ohno was already sitting up and making space on the couch for Nino to sit. Wordlessly, Nino joined him, pulling his knees up to his chest.
"For a little while there," Ohno said, "I thought you might have forgiven me."
"It's not that easy," Nino said, but he couldn't decide what he meant by it. Ohno seemed to sense Nino's confusion, and he spoke gently, as though his voice alone could fill the space between them.
"I don't blame you. Whether I meant to or not, I hurt you. I'm very sorry for that. But I still don't really understand what it is about me that you don't like," he said. "I can't figure out if you're scared of me, or if you hate me, or if you just wish you'd never met me in the first place."
"Do I seem like a kid to you?" Nino asked, not accusing so much as inquiring.
"In some ways," Ohno said. "Not in others."
"I don't hate you, and I'm not scared of you," Nino said.
"I'm glad," Ohno replied.
"I hate being wrong," Nino continued. "Being wrong can get you killed. It's killed a lot of people I knew. Being wrong about trusting you… is something I can't stand."
Quietly, he added, "But if I forgive you, then I was wrong to stop trusting you. Either way, I've screwed up."
"Being wrong isn't what's dangerous," Ohno said. "Being wrong and not learning from it is."
Nino blinked at him, surprised. "That's one of the smarter things I've heard you say."
"Well, my mom said it, not me," Ohno said sheepishly.
Nino laughed, feeling something in him twist. He wasn't sure he could put the feeling into words; it was part relief, part resignation, part regret. Now that some part of him had given him permission to forgive Ohno, he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable at how much time he'd wasted.
Time with the people around him, more than anything else, was precious to Nino.
"I bet Sho is hogging my pillows," Nino said with a sigh, leaning sideways until his head came to rest on Ohno's shoulder.
"…Nino?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you-what happened that night. Would you take it back?" Ohno asked quietly.
Nino turned the question over in his mind. That night, and the feelings he'd acted on, had seemed at the time almost unbearably powerful. Even the tiniest gesture was magnified in such a way that Nino had felt like every word between them and every touch confirmed a sensation of connection. Something about Ohno was reflected in Nino, and he'd been drawn to that.
"No," he said finally. "I wouldn't."
Ohno turned and hugged him, suddenly and almost desperate. Nino was struck by the thought that somehow, that had been the thing Ohno most wanted to hear.
He was glad.
~
Aiba had called them all into the kitchen the next morning, radiating a wiggling sort of excitement like a proud puppy who'd caught a rat. He positioned them all around the counter how he wanted them, each facing something covered with a dishcloth.
"That better be a clean one," Jun warned Aiba with a glance at the fabric. Aiba laughed nervously, but didn't answer, confirming Jun's fears that something unclean was touching his counters.
"After a morning of slaving away," Aiba said dramatically, and Nino snorted, "I have completed it."
"Completed… what?" Sho asked warily, voicing the question on all their minds.
"That harddrive!" Aiba said as thought this were obvious.
"…Already?" Nino asked, sounding impressed.
"I am just that good," Aiba said, puffing up.
"I'm sure you are," Jun said flatly.
"Anyway, time for the big reveal! Are you ready?" Aiba said, bravely ignoring Jun's lack of faith. "Three, two, one!"
He pulled off the dishcloth to reveal… well. Nino assumed it was a harddrive. Maybe.
"…Aiba," Jun said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"This is the on button here," Aiba said, pinching a nub at the top of one mound. "And this is the data transfer button!"
"Aiba," Nino said, sounding pained.
"As you can see, they're pretty large, but this round shape means they won't overheat as quickly, and plus it's just nice to look at, right?" Aiba said, cupping each round half.
"Aiba," Jun interrupted. "I thought you said you were making it into an egg shape?"
"Aren't these nicer?" Aiba chirped brightly.
"They look like boobs," Ohno pointed out unnecessarily.
"They are boobs," Nino growled. "You made my harddrive into a D-cup!"
"Please," Aiba sniffed. "They are double D's, at the very least."
"I know we had this talk already," Jun said, crossing his arms. "After the penis flashlight, and then again after the bikini-shaped tea cozy."
"But this is different!" Aiba insisted, fingering the nipple-buttons again. "These have form and function!"
"You expect me to hack into the Ment," Nino drawled, "with a pair of huge boobs?!"
"Great, isn't it?" Aiba beamed. "They'll never see it coming!"
"…penis flashlight!?" Sho squeaked after a beat of stunned silence.
"Look at it this way, Nino," Aiba said. "You may be short, but at least you've got a big rack!"
"I hate you," Nino said wearily.
Chapter 12.